The Incredible Mile

"My house in St. Pancras was being demolished. I was being rehoused one mile away in Euston. My furniture left by road with a removals van. I myself decided to make the journey by train.

'You cannot get from St. Pancras to Euston by train,' said the ticket clerk.

'Nonsense,' I said. And made this journey."

The "journey" Harold Elvin goes on to describe takes him from St. Pancras up to Newcastle, across to Bergen, then out to the Pacific via Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, "Leningrad", Moscow, Omsk, Ulan Bator, and Nakhodka (next to Vladivostok). The return to Euston goes down through Taskent, Samarkand (naturally), Tbilisi, Odessa, Istanbul, Paris and back to Euston via Bristol and Birmingham. The trip is helpfully mapped out on the book's cover. Incredible mile indeed. All these crazy unknown Brits and their inspired travels.

Bought the book on the way in today, excited by the email reminder from Easyjet that the seat sales to Turkey expires at midnight. On arriving, sad to discover disappointing news from my friend Barat. It appears he will be undertaking his mandatory military service between December and May, and so my flight to Byzantium is likely postponed. And the question remains - Quo Vadimus? Egypt? Malta? Casablanca? Skye? Barcelona? Rome? Krakow? the Lake District? Time will show, I guess.